The Fire In Our Hearts
by Ellamina
Summary: Something evil has taken over Pac's body. Something far worse than being possessed by a ghost. And now, Pac's out for the kill. Desperate to get him back to normal, Cylindria confronts him to bring him to his senses. But Pac is not the same anymore, and it puts Cyli in grave danger. However, where there's courage, there's hope. And where there's hope, there's love.
1. Part 1 - The Past

_They say that true friendship can break through all boundaries and overcome all obstacles._

 _They say that there's no greater light than the aid of a friend, bringing light into your journey and guiding you back onto the right path whenever you wander astray._

 _But sometimes, something evil comes in between you and the friend that you love so dearly._

 _An evil that consumes his entire mind and body with darkness, leaving him a mere puppet to control for evil deeds._  
 _No conscious, no will-power and no rational awareness...can result for even the greatest friend to turn against you and potentially hurt you._

 _How do you help your friend to see the light again, when nothing but pure darkness is controlling his body and manipulating his thoughts? How can you find the right words to make him snap out of it?  
How can you stop him from blindly attacking you?_

 _How can you_ _ **save**_ _him?_

 _But most importantly...how can you get him to_ _ **remember you**_ _?_

 _Cylindria was about to find the answers the hard way..._

* * *

The Netherworld was very dark, almost darker than usual. The black, smokey clouds hung heavily in the air, and got even thicker the closer it got to the tower of Betrayus's castle.

Far away from the castle, standing on a cliff overlooking Betrayus's domain, stood Cyli.

A hot and dry breeze drifted through the air past her and slightly blew at her hair. It gave her an unpleasant feeling, almost as if the wind was taunting her. Knots twisted and turned in her stomach as she stared at the castle, surrounded by the lake of lava. Billions of bats swarmed around the very top of the castle, with a few ghosts, cyclops and dragons flying here and there.

Cyli had ventured through the Netherworld hundreds of times with Pac and Spiral, and she never even once considered the place scary.

But now, knowing that she was alone and might never return to the surface of Pacworld ever again, the castle suddenly seemed very daunting...

Cyli closed her eyes tightly, remembering the horrible events that took place yesterday.

It's hard to imagine how drastically everything could've changed within 24 hours...

It all started out fine and normal, Cyli and her two best buds were called on duty again to fight an invasion of ghosts. Everything went as it normally did, Pac chomping down all the ghosts while Cyli and Spiral aided him in capturing some ghosts with their PSC's. Everything was perfectly fine.

But at some point in the invasion, something strange had caught Cyli's eye...

A red and black fog of dust seemed to have hovered and swirled among the ghosts. It was barely noticeable and might've been a trick of the light, so Cyli had ignored it.

But now she was deeply regretting the mistake she had made.

The red fog had turned smaller until it was cloud-shaped. Then as if it was magnetically drawn to him, it shot at Pac and disappeared into his body.

At first, nothing happened to him. He merely blinked in confusion and afterwards, happily carried on in gulping down the ghosts. It was only after the invasion that Cyli noticed something was different...

Pac had a scowl on his face, as if he was mad at something...yet he didn't tell. In fact, he had been awfully quiet on their way to Sir Cumference's lab.

Throughout their visit, Pac had not uttered a word while they discussed the ghost invasions.

As the minutes ticked on, Pac just kept scowling and even showed signs of impatience. Everyone had been confused and baffled on this new side of him. But it only got worse…

Pac went from scowling to glaring, and when Cyli had attempted to calm him down, he had aggressively yelled her off.

A pang of hurt gripped Cyli's heart as she remembered that moment...

Pac had _**never**_ raised his voice at her like that, let alone glare so furiously at her. He and she were so close...and she couldn't understand why he had suddenly yelled at her like that…

She remembered how Spiral and Sir C had stepped closer to prevent any further aggression and to try to get Pac to calm down. She remembered the strange red glow in his eyes as he glared at every single one of them...

...No one saw it coming.

Pac had suddenly screamed as if he was in pain, and he had gripped his head in his hands. Before anyone could react, Pac was covered in a black and red light, shining brighter and brighter.

When the light had faded…they faced a living nightmare.

Pac was no longer the golden Yellow Orb of legend. He was no longer the sweet and brave little Pacworlder that they had called their dear friend, no longer the loyal protector of Pacworld…

Instead of his once-yellow appearance, Pac's skin had turned to orange, and a crown resembling flames rested on his head. Heat radiated off from his body and surrounded him in a cloud of red, burning hot air. He looked just like his Fire form…but his eyes were nowhere _near_ the same. The part of his eyes that was supposed to be white had turned crimson red, his irises went from blue to the glaring colour of the sun, and his pupils went from black to white…

Everyone had been too shocked to move, much less utter a word. Pac had breathed so deeply and heavily, as if this new form was making him feel powerful like never before.

The next thing everyone knew, Pac's eyes flashed sharply and flames surrounded his body. The lab itself had begun shaking uncontrollably. Where Pac had stood, a mass of flames erupted and an explosion occurred, throwing the entire lab into a void of white and red flashes.

Then everything had gone black…

It was only hours later that Sir C, Spiral and Cyli woke up under the rubble and debris from the destroyed lab. Like an impossible miracle, none of them had gotten any life-threatening injuries. Only Spiral had a mildly twisted arm, Sir C's leg got slightly burned, and Cyli was lucky enough to have gotten out with only a few scratches.

The lab was in complete ruins, but through all the rubble, they discovered an enormous hole that tunnelled through the roof to the surface. Only Pac could've made that hole…

Cyli opened her eyes after remembering that fateful event, and found herself staring at Betrayus's castle yet again.

Pac was in there…he _had_ to be.

It _had_ to be Betrayus and Dr. Buttocks who did this to Pac…to _her_ Pac…

The wind whistled past Cyli and she shivered. She looked behind her, back towards the entrance where she had entered the Nether-realm…

Sir C had tried stopping her to come here, saying that it was too dangerous. Even Spiral had held her back, trying to convince her that Pac isn't the same anymore, and that he could hurt her...

But she had refused to listen.

During the night, while Sir C and Spiral tried figuring out how to fix this mess, Cyli lied that she was going to bed to rest up in preparation for the next day. No one even noticed that she had sneaked out, leaving for the Netherworld.

And now here she was.

Cyli turned to look at the mission in front of her again, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, her eyes opened and she started running down towards the castle with only one thought in mind,

' _Please be okay, Pac…I'm coming for you.'_


	2. Part 2 - The Arrival

Of all the times Cyli's been inside Betrayus' castle, it has never been this _quiet_ before.

There was no machines or inventions being worked on, there was no usual evil cackle from Betrayus or Dr. Buttocks. Not even Fluffy or a single monster was in sight.

The only noise she could hear was the bubbling lava below the castle, and the occasional ghost or cyclops that flew around outside the walls of the castle.

Everything was just too silent…

' _It can't be this quiet, there's always something big or noisy going on around here…something's off. If this ends up to be a trap, I'm dead'_ , Cyli thought as she quietly sneaked past the walls of the castle.

It only took her one more corner to walk past, and there she was facing the doors of Betrayus' throne room.

She could feel the beat of her heart increasing ever the slightest. She was nervous, and didn't know what to expect.

Swallowing down her anxiousness, Cyli stepped forward and pushed against the doors as quietly as she could. The doors creaked like a groaning machine that needed to be oiled as Cyli opened them. As silently as possible, she slipped inside…

Only to be met with an empty throne room with no sign of Betrayus, Dr. Buttocks, Butt-ler _or_ Pac anywhere.

Confused and even more nervous, Cyli entered and walked towards Betrayus's TV set, leaving the doors open in case she needed a quick escape.

Cyli eyed the place around her. _'Why is everything so quiet? Betrayus usually never leaves his throne room…'_ Cyli thought, looking around for any sign of ghosts.

But then a thought occurred to her, _'…What if Pac was already here? What if he came here in his uncontrollable state to chomp Betrayus? But where could he be now? And wouldn't Pinky and the Ghost Gang have come out to warn-'_

 _ **BANG!**_

Cyli gasped and swung around in fright when a loud noise pierced through the air.

The doors she had kept open had just closed themselves shut!

"What the?!" Cyli eyed the doors in confusion and suspicion, but she froze when laughter ringed through the air.

" _Hehehehe…Mhahahaha!_ Oh how nice of you to drop in, _Cylindria…"_

That voice…

Cyli's hands clenched into fists at the sound of that voice.

She turned back around to face the throne, and got into a defensive stance upon seeing the king of the Netherworld hovering above it, as if he appeared out of nowhere.

"You…!" Cyli said venomously, glaring full-force at Betrayus.

"Oh my, why the angry look, _Silly_? You look so tense", Betrayus sneered tauntingly, smirking down at the lone, defensive Pacworlder, "Have you… _lost_ something, perhaps?"

Cyli's blood boiled. She knew he was talking about Pac.

"Where is he, Betrayus?! I _know_ you have something to do with what's happened to Pac!" Cyli yelled up at the fire ghost.

"Who, _moi_? Now why would I ever do something like that to your little lemon tart?" Betrayus said in an act of fake innocence.

"Then how do you explain Pac turning evil, destroying Sir C's lab and heading straight here to the Netherworld?" Cyli growled.

" _Ha!_ Perhaps zee lemon ball had a change of mind and decided to join zee stronger and greater side instead."

Cyli jerked to her left when Dr Buttocks suddenly appeared from out of the blue and floated up into the air, a taunting smirk on his blue, ghostly face. A sinking feeling settled in her stomach when a thought occurred to Cyli; she probably should've brought her PSC along with her…

Dr Buttocks floated up near Betrayus and proceeded into speaking, "After all, it only takes a great force to get zee lemon ball on our side, that of vich vee have successfully conquered!"

"You see, little Cyli, the real question you should be asking is who _convinced_ the Pac-brat to turn sides", Betrayus said, smirking down at her as if he had just declared himself the victor.

"What are you talking about…?" Cyli asked wearily, glaring at Betrayus in suspicion. She failed to notice a figure quietly approaching her from behind…

"All this talk and chatter is very tiresome, so why don't I _show_ you what I'm talking about instead?" Betrayus smirked. Within a flash Betrayus swooped down on his throne and snapped his fingers.

It all happened so fast.

Cyli had suddenly felt the presence of heat behind her, and then…

 _ **THWACK!**_

Something huge and metallic struck Cyli in her side and sent her sprawling across the hard floor.

" _Gah!_ " Cyli screamed as she hit the ground many feet away from where she had just stood. Her head pounded, her mind was dazed and her vision was blurry for a second from of the sudden hit. Groaning in pain, Cyli got up and shook her head to clear the dizziness.

 _ **GRRAAAR!**_

Cyli's head shot up in alarm with widened eyes when she heard that furious battlecry. But all she saw in that moment was a bright, burning ball of flames being hurtled straight at her.

With a yelp, Cyli dived away sideways and felt the intense heat of the fireball shoot past her, nearly roasting her alive.

She hit the ground yet again, but this time she rolled into a summersault and used the momentum to get back on her feet in a flash. She could feel fresh bruises on her from the hit… but nothing could compare to the pang of heartache she felt when she saw _him…_

He was standing not too far from her, a red glow of heat surrounding his body thanks to his fire form. In his hand, he held a metallic beam of at least two meters long, with an odd sharp edge at the very top. His eyes, like two burning suns, glared right into Cyli's shocked and horrified ones.

" _Pac_ …" Cyli murmured softly under her breath.


End file.
